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Free Press Staff Writer

Congress can come to an agreement on taxes and spending in time to avoid the “fiscal cliff” threat facing the country at year’s end once the “grown-ups” in the House and Senate step up and do their jobs, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Thursday.

“We’ve got to get away from slogans and symbolism and get to substance,” Leahy told a group of reporters after attending an awards ceremony at the Burlington Police Department. “It can be done.”

Leahy said the dangers of the fiscal cliff will provide the motivation needed for Republicans and Democrats to reach a compromise. The “fiscal cliff” term refers to a package of severe tax increases and cuts in Medicare and defense spending set to go into effect Dec. 31 if no deal is reached.

“Now it’s going to be a lot easier to go in and say, with this fiscal cliff facing us, you’re going to cost the taxpayers of this country hundreds of billions of dollars one way or another if you leave this uncertainty going on,” Leahy said. “That’s going to be where the grown-ups in both parties are going to come together.”

Vermont’s senior senator said he was encouraged by remarks made by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Wednesday that he was willing to consider revenue increases as part of negotiations to reduce the deficit.

“In conversations I’ve had with Speaker Boehner, I know he wants to find some way out of this,” Leahy said. “I think most responsible Republicans and Democrats want to find a way out of this.”

Leahy said Boehner has shown a willingness to work with Democrats in the past, but couldn’t do so because of pressure from tea-party activists within his Republican ranks.

Leahy’s remarks were contrasted with those Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made Wednesday.

Sanders, in an interview, said he wants President Obama to attack positions taken by conservative Republicans favoring cuts to Social Security and Medicare and opposing increased taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans.

Leahy said that, in his view, the signal voters sent Tuesday was that they want House and Senate leaders to work with Obama, not against him.

“What has shifted is the anxiety of the people of this country,” Leahy said. “I think what the American people said is, ‘We want to give the president another chance. We want it to work.’ He actually has tried, and they understand that, and now they want Republicans and Democrats to work together.”

Leahy also said everything should be on the table during the upcoming negotiations, from taxing the wealthy more to reform of entitlement programs.

At one point, Leahy said he wished there were a way to impose a tax to pay for what he said were the ill-conceived wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Congress voted to put those wars “on the credit card,” which contributed $2 trillion to the national debt.

“I’d be happy to have us say, ‘Let’s have a tax to pay for the war’ and ask all those willing to vote for a mistaken war to pay for it,” Leahy said. He later acknowledged that such a proposal “won’t go anywhere.”